Anti-Mera team; or my new favourite board clear.

The last blog post I did on here was a new turn three kill. With the team being heavily reliant on one character hitting for 20 damage talk quickly turned to a card from War of Light which could stop this team in it's tracks. To be more precise, a global which could stop the team in it's tracks. That global appears on the character Mera in two of it's versions (the common and uncommon) and reads: Pay (mask). If a character would deal you 5 or more combat damage, it instead deals you 2 combat damage.

So what's the solution? Well, simply put, overwhelm with characters.

Getting through with one character like Patch or Formerly Weapon X is great, but when they can stop that with 1 mask then those options become a lot less viable. But attack with 6 characters that have 4 attack and Mera becomes pretty easy.

Great! So what's the problem? Well if you have enough time to get a bunch of characters on the board then your opponent will also have time to get a load of characters on the board...

Without further ado let me introduce to you my new favourite board clear:

Get out four sidekicks attack with red eyes and clear your opponents field of all their sidekicks and four of their characters. It's pretty stupendous and efficient. Once you have got a red eyes in your field you can just wait for Fighting to come cycle through your bag. The added bonus is that Red Eyes is probably going to be one of those characters your opponent blocks because of the added 2 attack he gains for each sidekick.

So that's how you clear your opponents field. But how do we actually do enough damage if you opponent has Mera?

Kobold - Greater Humanoid: 1 cost and swarm, it's never going to be a character we attack through with, but gives us some nice ramp and is good fodder for our next card...

Blue Eyes White Dragon - Monstrous Dragon: here mainly for the global which makes Red Eyes cheaper, keeps our churn up, but also gives us an excellent way to get rid of any extra characters on your opponents side. Knock out a Kobold to get rid of an opponents character? Yes please. Using Fighting basically makes any character in a Solomon Grundy during the attack step, speaking of which...

Solomon Grundy - Buried on a Sunday: if Fighting makes everyone else into a Grundy for Blue Eyes to control then it makes Grundy ridiculous. Knock out Grundy and your opponent has to knock out two of his characters. Other than that his attack stats avoid Mera all together and this combo is already well proven.

Human Torch - Matchstick: A max of 4 attack and an ability that enables you to buy a dice and potentially field it that same turn? Once you get one out you wait until you can drop the Red Eyes Fighting combo and buy a bunch of them, field a character and roll 'em. His fielding cost is a little unfortunate though - if fielding cost does prove a problem you could try the rare Curse of Dragon, Skeletal Structure though that can be effected by Mera.

(That's the core. But the other characters I've included are Harpie Lady - Cyber Slash,: to guarantee sidekicks in the field/ Morphing Jar - All Seeing Eye: punishes your opponent for using Blue-Eyes for the discount, works great for PXG match-ups and has a top level attack of 4/ Angel - Soaring: great stats and a useful alternate win condition/ Resurrection for the global and a potential turn two purchase of Red Eyes.)

The strategy for this team is fairly obvious, a turn one purchase of either Morphing Jar or Fighting depending on whether they have a PXG or are going to be using your Blue Eyes ability. Field a sidekick in preparation for a Blue Eyes use, and Resurrect. By turn two or three you should have a Red Eyes in your bag. Once he is fielded start fielding as many sidekicks as you can, while getting a Human Torch active and putting enough in the used pile ready to trigger his ability. By the time you are ready to swing through no matter how many masks they have ready for Mera you won't be stopped.

From trying this build out a couple of times I've got to say that the combo works really well and is difficult to stop, the same methods as used to stop Gobby will be effective against this team, but if your opponent starts doing this then you will be getting a boat load of energy to spend so just get some Grundy's out and keep your opponent rolling their win conditions.

Thanks for reading, you can see the full team here if you would like. Please let me know what you think, and if there is anything I can work on let me know.

Comments

The only downside with using Fighting + BEWD as a replacement for Grundy is that you wouldn't be able to use BEWD until after blockers were assigned, at which point (unless you have Overcrush) it doesn't matter much about KOing another character.

But it's a great idea! Maybe instead of Angel: Soaring, try this instead to help get Sidekicks out?

The only downside with using Fighting + BEWD as a replacement for Grundy is that you wouldn't be able to use BEWD until after blockers were assigned, at which point (unless you have Overcrush) it doesn't matter much about KOing another character.

But it's a great idea! Maybe instead of Angel: Soaring, try this instead to help get Sidekicks out?

Yeah that's why I have that Harpie Lady. Apart from her fielding costs I actually prefer her as she takes dice from the ready area rather than the used pile. Matching up against a PXG I never have sidekicks in my used pile.